Google Type – Random Google images become characters for a typeface.
Next Gen OCR Project Reaches Back into Early English History and Databases via The Digital Shift
This Font Made Of DNA Isn’t Just For Kicks via Co.Design | FastCompany
8 Typefaces Designed to Serve a Greater Purpose. Fonts to help dyslexia, proofreading and saving the planet…
It will be interesting to see if any other similar Canadian laws are launched, although we did just have the passing of Bill C-11 (Copyright Modernization Act). Here’s a post by Michael Geist about “What the New Copyright Law Means for You.”
7 Landmark Tech Laws Passed in 2012 via Mashable
“An effective modern leader requires a blend of intellectual qualities — the ability to think analytically, strategically and creatively — and emotional ones, including self-awareness, empathy, and humility. In short, great leadership begins with being a whole human being.
I meet far more women with this blend of qualities than I do men, and especially so when it comes to emotional and social intelligence.”
via What Women Know about Leadership that Men Don’t – Tony Schwartz – Harvard Business Review.
“Barack Obama may have comfortably won re-election in the electoral college, and squeaked a victory in the popular vote. But here is the absolute, undoubted winner of this election: Nate Silver and big data.”
via Triumph of the Nerds: Nate Silver Wins in 50 States.
Nate Silver is a statistician and political blogger (FiveThirtyEight – Nate Silver’s Political Calculus) for The New York Times. His statistical forecasts for the 2012 American Presidential Election were amazingly accurate and are a great case study for validating the importance and value of big data.
“Scanning the recent news articles about the LFL movement reveals something else, too. More often than not, those interviewed acknowledge the sense of community and collegiality that grow up around the little libraries.” via Little Free Libraries | Office Hours.
Little Free Library Revolution Takes Root in Calgary from openfile.ca March 20, 2012
“Meet the latest tech superheroes: school librarians. According to School Library Journal’s 2012 School Technology Survey, media specialists are leading the charge to bring new media, mobile devices, social apps, and web-based technologies into our nation’s classrooms.”
“Documentary Heaven is a free site that has organized more than 1600 documentary films found across the Internet. Through Documentary Heaven can find documentaries covering all kinds of topics in science, history, politics, business, and many more categories. The videos are sourced from a variety of services including, but not limited to, YouTube.”
via Free Technology for Teachers: 7 Places to Find & Watch Documentaries Online.
I’m super keen on libraries evolving into makerspaces supporting learning and collaboration. Although libraries have traditionally always supported these activities, its being raised to a new level with the push for the ability to create using technology and leveraging knowledge of community members. Very cool!
Big data is almost on the cusp of the emerging technology hype cycle according to the Gartner 2012 Hype Cycle and according to Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2012 (PCMAG.com). What is the ‘big’ deal with big data anyways? Below I have posted links to information resources highlighting a range of issues related to big data.
Gartner defines big data as…”the term adopted by the market to describe extreme information management and processing issues which exceed the capability of traditional information technology along one or multiple dimensions to support the use of the information assets. Throughout 2010 and into 2011, big data has focused primarily on the volume issues of extremely large datasets generated from technology practices such as social media, operational technology, Internet logging and streaming sources. A wide array of hardware and software solutions have emerged to address the partial issue of volume.”
The Data Drive Life by Gary Wolf (April 28, 2010) is a great backgrounder article on how we have come to generate more and more data in our daily lives.
Big Data/Linked Data White Paper from Fujitsu, March 2012
Business Perspective
From Harvard Business Review. The Next Wave of Process Strategy, October 30, 2012 and Big Data Hype (and Reality), October 18, 2012
Significance to Libraries
Data Science: What’s in it for the New Librarian? from Information Space, July 16, 2012
Big data is also about the Internet of Things and Linked Data. Linked Data for Libraries OCLC Video posted August 7, 2012
Defining the “Big” in Big Data by Leslie Johnston at the Library of Congress, May 17, 2012
Importance to Other Industries
Big Data and social media: A match made in heaven? posted October 23, 2012 at the TechRepublic
Big Data is Transforming Healthcare from Wired Science, October 16, 2012
Software
Big Data Meets BI: Beyond The Hype from Information Week, October 30, 2012
Lists some of the other open source software in the big data space (versus Hadoop) Big Data Right Now: Five Trendy Open Source Technologies from TechCrunch, October 27, 2012
infophile 